But Where Are the Gods?

The Ascent Begins…

I suck at blogging. No, really. I do. For nearly a decade (holy crap, seriously?) now, I’ve attempted to push my thoughts out into the world — longer if my pre–WordPress blogging days are taken into account.

In that time, I wrote a lot about my faith in Jesus Christ and about my understanding of the Bible, sometimes loudly, often without a clue about which I was talking.

Without focus, I published movie reviews, anti-science rants, conservative political rants, contextless journal entries, and so much more, little of which contributed to an overall narrative or theme — as if there was an actual ultimate goal to my blogging besides pretending that what I had to say on any and all topics mattered and thus should be said.

I titled my blog ridiculous things through the years: “Rick’s Watchtower” (because I was “sounding a warning” about the world’s apostasy! oh, the Jehovah’s Witnesses use that? better change it), “Timothy’s Burden” (title stolen from one of my then favorite fundamentalism-friendly songs by the Martins and had nothing to do with me being named Timothy… which I’m not… probably why that name didn’t stick around long), or eventually “Kingdom Geek” (because I didn’t just post about kingdom of God stuff, but threw in code and other geek stuff just to, I don’t know, unintentionally annoy my audience, so I figured it was time to finally acknowledge it?).

Like I said: I suck at blogging. At branding. At focusing. Blogging is the cumulation of dozens of lesser disciplines, and I was somewhat adept at only a few: having a desire to write, understanding grammar, knowing how to get and keep a blog online, and that’s about it.

Here I go again.

Several years back, I stopped obsessing over the Bible as a source of truth. I underwent a 180° shift in ideology, becoming, as my father describes, an “evangelical atheist.”

I don’t disagree with that; I am an atheist, and I talkaboutit often. I consider atheism to be good news — it is liberation from ancient gods, imaginary damnations, and outmoded moralities; it is freedom to see the wonder of the world for what it is and to love our fellow humans for who they are. So yes, I am evangelical, and I gladly proclaim that good news.

Olympus, for the ancient Greeks, was home to their pantheon of gods. It was a real place with mythological significance, which made their faith falsifiable: ascend Olympus and see whether the palace of the gods can be found.

In that way, Olympus is a symbol for all of theism, for all of religion: It represents those pieces of religion which can be falsified, and its ascent is one which we should all consider.

Why, after all, believe in a god whose claims can be found to be a lie (or less antagonistically, a fictional myth)?

I ascend Olympus because I spent entirely too much of my life wrapped up in religion, buying into its bigotries, such as against science or homosexuals.

Olympus, however, is a large mountain, though, and rather than ascend it alone, I’m here, sharing it with all of you.